Registration required. Free. Click here for complete details.

The Oriental Institute invites you to a free half-day symposium to be held in conjunction with the special exhibit, In Remembrance of Me. The symposium will highlight a recent discovery by the Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli, Turkey, that has revealed new information about the care and commemoration of the dead in the Iron Age Near East. Experts in ancient Near Eastern religion will come together to describe the significance of the Katumuwa Stele and to place its mortuary beliefs and practices into the broader context of the contemporary biblical world and neighboring cultures in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. Reception to follow.

Symposium Schedule:

David Schloen, Associate Professor of Syro-Palestinian Archaeology, Oriental Institute: “The World of Katumuwa and the Oriental Institute’s Discoveries at Zincirli, Turkey”

K. Lawson Younger, Jr. Professor of Old Testament, Semitic Languages, and Ancient Near Eastern History, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School: “The Katumuwa Stele Inscription”

Theodore J. Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University: “The Commemoration of the Dead in Biblical Israel and the Levant”

Theo van den Hout, Professor of Hittite and Anatolian Languages, Oriental Institute: “The Commemoration of the Dead in Anatolia”

Karel van der Toorn, Professor of Religion and Society, University of Amsterdam: “The Gods and the Dead: Family Religion in the Ancient Near East”

Panel Discussion: Petra Goedegebuure, Assistant Professor of Hittitology, Oriental Institute; Emily Teeter, Research Associate and Special Exhibits Coordinator, Oriental Institute; Virginia R. Herrmann, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Dartmouth College